My name is Peter Asuk Amba. I was born in Ikom, Nigeria 37 years ago, and I am a graduate of Crop Science. After graduation, I worked with an IT training company as a career consultant/marketer and rose to the rank of a business development manager. My passion for agri-business started when I was an undergraduate, where I traded on timber, cocoa and food crops.

In 2014 I resigned to pursue my passion of becoming an agro-entrepreneur with the establishment of a 6 acre GRENVEG FARM for the production, processing, packaging and sales of vegetables in Epe-Lagos, Nigeria.

THE PROJECT

Our mission is to provide highly nutritional, organic, farm-fresh vegetables processed from farm to pot on a daily basis at economically viable low prices to the over 20 million residents and food and hospitality businesses of Lagos. To achieve this, we are introducing the following innovations:

Packaging in bags that can be recycled, with Step by Step Menus on how to prepare healthy local vegetable soup delicacies, with nutritional value printed on them.

MOTIVATION

Vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals and act as immuno-stimulants and vermifuges. A balanced diet should have 250-325 grams of vegetables and an average requirement for vegetables is 285 grams per person per day for a balanced diet. Meals rich in local vegetables help prevent cancer, improve blood count, reduce blood glucose and cholesterol levels, and beat diseases like diabetes, malaria, hepatitis, diarrhoea, and dysentery.

Most of Nigeria’s staple soup delicacies like efo-riro, idekan-ikong, afang, ewedu, and egusi depend totally on vegetables to be prepared. Most of the vegetables that enter Lagos markets come from the neighbouring states. If these vegetables are not transported properly, processed and stored in their natural form (without heat), they will eventually lose their nutrient constitution via oxidation. This is why we are processing and packaging to balance the moisture and nutrient content of the vegetables before use.

Also, there is a large demand gap in the Lagos market because of the high cost of transportation, drop in production due to high cost of agro-chemicals and raw materials, value reduction of the dollar to naira, and frequent oxidization and nutrients loss, which add up to the following effects: vegetable scarcity, proliferation of oxidized, low quality vegetables, heavy dependence on canned foods, highly inconsistent pricing regime, and high human mortality rate due to increased cases of cancer, diabetes, and kidney and liver failure resulting from high intake of canned food, fast food, and adulterated vegetables.

SUCCESS FACTORS

To achieve our set targets, we must satisfy the following:

Achieve target production via familiarity with the plants’ characteristics, good management and maintenance of adequate yield, operations, expense, and sales records. Ensure quality/timely market-driven production with the aid of our FARM MANAGER software. Plan production that takes advantage of productive markets and balances market demand with harvest.

Hi Peter,
I appreciate your spirit and effort . I am a strong believer in Africa, Nigeria and agritreneurship. I have tried to establish farms in the past through some young men, but they failed and the money invested went down the drain. As at today, I have 7 hectres of land bought for agricultural activities and small portion of livestock in operation at the moment. I share the same vision like you listed and have prepared for it, but my problem is getting the right person to run the agribusiness as I am still working in other field of engineering . my mail is herewith….tkalu58@gmail.com. let’s connect and see if we can work together. The money you are looking for is nothing. Regards….nenye.

We have a vehicle we use for early morning supply from the farm to the grenveg shops which will be located strategically in the major areas of the metropolis. The bics will be used to move goods within streets, estates etc

The proposal is definitely people based. It seeks to promote the production, processing, preservation and distribution of products to the market and the final consumer. The ultimate objective apart from creating employment through Agriculture it provides and make very available healthy and uninterrupted supply of fresh vegetables. This creativity is indigenous and deserves all the support to advance further and this is a noble way to actually add and improve the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation and to also encourage the local content mantra

This is very nice. Very much needed especially outside the country. In south Africa as at today you may not find this very important, healthy and nutritious vegetables. But if you do approximately 10-15 flat single leaf will be sold for R30 #20 to 1R will be N600 . Imagine that! This will go far.

Good job Piro… That’s how I do call you. You’ve been in this for a while, you can only grow at a time when oil and gas has disappointed Nigeria, agriculture has come to the rescue. All things being equal, you will do better.. I trust you.

Untill we Africans decide to value ours, promote and package it properly, we will never catch up with the developed world. its time for us to be creative. Thumps up. keep the good work and follow it to its logical conclusion. All the best Amba

As a lover of our local vegetables its nice to know that i can just order for my ugu,shoko,okro ewedu etc. and cook it immediatly. that is i can have my meal in 5 munites. this is great. But how can we know if its very fresh when already sliced and packed.

Thanks Micheal for your observation. when the vegetables are sliced , they are kept to air dry before been packaged. vaccum simply means without air. most of the times vegetables kept in the open looses water and nutrient via oxidation, reaction of air particles with the vegetables. but when it is vacumm sealed, are kept is a cool temperature using and vegetable chiller, it will remain at tha state it is for at least 2 weeks. but you cannot vaccum seal without maintaining a stable temperature. Take for example, conduct a simple experiment, Take an ugu-telfera leaf and put it in a transparent bread nylon tie the head tightly and keep it, while you take another ugu-telfera leaf keep it in the open under room temperature. the one in the nylon that is in an airtight medium will look fresher after 2 days than the one outside in a room temperature.

I’ve known Peter for some years now. And it is an enriching experience to see him deploy Agriculture as a platform for development and business innovation. I love the technological approach to his business plan and his decision to provide something dire to the culinary experience of most Nigerians. My interest is surely piqued!!!

I always think of the coming home from work and wanting to cook a fast one , and ordering fresh vegetables from the farm to use immediately. this is a dream come true for me. But how can you really make this work in a city like Lagos with alot of traffic bottleneck.

Thanks Emmanuel, yes Lagos is a very busy city with lots of traffic, but we intend to navigate our way around using motobikes, also we understand how the traffic in lagos is and will time our movements to ellude traffic. also the setting up of vegetable shops is to make the fresh farm vegetables closer to the targeted consummer

This is what we need in a time as this where most food in the market have lost their vitality. So if we can get fresh organic vegetation for our diets, our nutritional balance diets is guaranteed. Good job.

I ve always loved our local vegetables but always never agreed with the way its handled in the market. if truely your production is organic and you neatly process and package, then i will root for you all the way

Peter Amber, I am honestly flabbergasted towsrds the brain behind this great initiative. My supposrd question has been asked by Michael and your reply is satisfactory. Thumbs up as we look forward to your efforts places healthy food of millions not just Nationally but globally. So proud of you!. Congratulations.

When i followed the link and saw this business i fell in love with it, if young Africans will think this way and bring innovations that will improve the quality of our traditional foods, we will be better off as a continent. great job Peter

We presently cannot meet the demands of our clients due to lack of machines to slice,and package, since we do everything manually now. when we are fully equipped we will satisfy all our clients optimally. Thanks for your valuable contribution

This is great Peter1 You and a number of other Nigerian agropreneurs are making a difference to the Food challenges of the country. This is the spirit. Well done. I pray you receive all the financial help you may require to take this to the next level for Nigeria will be better off for it. More grease to your elbows. Uche Nwaogu

I am strongly of the opinion that the Nigerian government should focus more of thier effort to organizing and funding agro entrepreneurial initiatives like this, so that in 10-20 yaers time our economy will totally depend on local food production, who knows we can even become food exporters. Well done brother.

In an era where the inorganic, artificial and carcinogenic food stuff are rapidly overthrowing the availability of natural agricultural produce with its grave health implications, no idea is more timely and imperative than this great innovation. I wish you good speed.

This is a Very innovative ..brilliant idea .very well packaged and hygienic. Known Peter for years now ,very dedicated and hard working…I like the the fact it’s all organic vegetables.government should join hands in projects like this to make it a success .

We have three groups of market, the traditional markets, Restaurants and Hotels and Super Stores(Shoprite). Our packaging is simple we use bag that can be recycled and seal using automatic sealers and vacuum sealer depending on the crop and the kind of processing.

Thanks princess, the Vegetables are organically grown without chemicals so they have a longer shelf life, they will be sliced immediately they are harvested before packaging and supply. For those in the grenveg shop, they will be vacuum sealed and kept in a vegetable chiller for one day before sale so they Will still be in their natural state when the end user is using it.

Wonderful business idea, we have been looking for this for a long time. Thank God you came as such a time like this to help move this nation forward through this medium. God speed sir God speed. Awesome Success and all you require you will get IJN

Hello Nenye, sorry for the unfortunate experience you had with farming, they lots of factors that causes a farming operation to fail, but the most important is management. I will send you a mail with my number so we can talk. Thanks